Prison buses are driving around empty in the Tucson area. Are Wackenhut and the DHS preparing for civil unrest?
Read more —
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/wackenhut.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 51 Comments »
HOW TO RESOLVE THE CREDIT CRISIS: GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
Posted on January 12, 2009 by Ellen Brown
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith famously said, “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.” If banks can create money, why are we suffering from a “credit crunch”? Why can’t banks create all the money they can find borrowers for?
Read more . . .
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 163 Comments »
Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul: The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme Called Fractional Reserve Banking
Posted on December 30, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done, but his Ponzi scheme was small compared to one that has been perpetrated for hundreds of years by the banking system itself. What distinguishes the legal scheme known as “fractional reserve” lending from the illegal schemes of Madoff and his ilk is that the bankers’ scheme is protected by government charter and backstopped with government funds. The sheer size of the bailout efforts today, however, indicates that the banking scheme has reached its mathematical limits and needs to be superseded by something more sustainable.
Read more: http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/ponzi.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 37 Comments »
GROUND ZERO ON WALL STREET: FED FUNDS AND TREASURY BILLS HIT 0% INTEREST
Posted on December 20, 2008 by Ellen Brown
The federal funds rate and the interest on 3-month Treasury bills both just hit ZERO percent. This means banks and the government are borrowing money for free. Yet demand for the T-bills at auction was four times the available supply! Who is clamoring to buy the debt of the world’s most insolvent debtor for no return at all — and why?
Read more — http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/zero_percent_t-bills.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 53 Comments »
Sustainable Government: Banking for a “New” New Deal
Posted on December 9, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Even before taking office, Obama has started his version of the “fireside chats” (updated from radio to online video) given by Roosevelt nearly weekly to reassure the public. He said on November 22 that he plans to create 2.5 million new jobs by 2011 and kick-start the economy by building roads and bridges, modernizing schools, and creating technology and infrastructure for renewable energy. These are excellent ideas, but what will they be funded with—more government debt?
Read more — http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=3162
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 13 Comments »
“Oops, We Meant $7 TRILLION!” What Hank and Ben Are Up to and How They Plan to Pay for It All
Posted on December 1, 2008 by Ellen Brown
The $700 billion that was arm-twisted from Congress in October was just the camel’s nose under the tent. The Paulson/Bernanke team is now prepared to pay $7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system. Prepared to pay how? Congress has not raised its debt ceiling to that level, and the Fed doesn’t have the funds on its books . . .
Read whole article here — http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/oops.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 4 Comments »
All Is Well in Stepfordville: More on the Pre-election Chicanery of the Plunge Protection Team
Posted on November 3, 2008 by Ellen Brown
It was another surreal week on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising a thousand points while the economy continued to sink into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. More evidence of the Plunge Protection Team at work? The election was only days away . . .
Read more — http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/stepfordville.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 8 Comments »
THE NOT-SO-INVISIBLE HAND: HOW THE PLUNGE PROTECTION TEAM KILLED CAPITALISM
Posted on October 26, 2008 by Ellen Brown
October 24 marks the 79th anniversary of the October 1929 stock market crash. Many feared a repeat of this disaster on Friday, October 24, 2008; but remarkably, disaster was averted. How? Suspicious observers saw the hand of the Plunge Protection Team pulling strings behind the scenes . . .
Read more —
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/manipulation.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 14 Comments »
THE COLLAPSE OF A 300 YEAR PONZI SCHEME: THE REAL DEBATE IS CRONY SOCIALISM OR FINANCIAL SOVEREIGNTY
Posted on October 18, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Last night, the Presidential candidates had their last debate before the election. They talked of the baleful state of the economy and the stock market; but omitted from the discussion was what actually caused the credit freeze, and whether the banks should be nationalized as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now proceeding to do. The omission was probably excusable, since the financial landscape has been changing so fast that it is hard to keep up. A year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through 14,000 to make a new all-time high. Anyone predicting then that a year later the Dow would drop nearly by half and the Treasury would move to nationalize the banks would have been regarded with amused disbelief. But that is where we are today.
Read more —
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/modest_proposal.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 13 Comments »
The Fed Now Owns the World’s Largest Insurance Company — But Who Owns the Fed?
Posted on October 9, 2008 by Ellen Brown
The Federal Reserve has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. These increasingly controversial encroachments on the public purse warrant a closer look at the central banking scheme itself. Who owns the Federal Reserve, who actually controls it, where does it get its money, and whose interests is it serving?
Read more . . .
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/time_to_buy_the_fed.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 16 Comments »
It’s the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG All Had to Be Bailed Out
Posted on September 19, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Why the extraordinary bailout measures for Fannie, Freddie and AIG? The answer may have less to do with saving the insurance business, the housing market, or the Chinese investors clamoring for a bailout than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the entire private global banking system. What had to be saved at all costs was not housing or the dollar but the financial derivatives industry; and the precipice from which it had to be saved was an “event of default” that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, a collapse that could take the entire global banking system down with it.
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/its_the_derivatives.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 38 Comments »
Take a Load Off Fannie: Bailout or Nationalization for the Mortgage Giants?
Posted on September 6, 2008 by Ellen Brown
The U.S. Treasury recently sought and was granted an unlimited credit line for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the authority to buy their stock, effectively nationalizing them; but this could mean $5 trillion more in liabilities for the federal government, causing it to lose its own triple-A rating. What to do? There is a solution that would salvage the mortgage giants and cost the taxpayers nothing . . .
Read more —
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/take_a_load_off_fannie.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 10 Comments »
WAG THE DOG: HOW TO CONCEAL MASSIVE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Posted on August 15, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Last week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had just announced record losses, and so had most reporting corporations. Unemployment was mounting, the foreclosure crisis was deepening, state budgets were in shambles, and massive bailouts were everywhere. Investors had every reason to expect the dollar and the stock market to plummet, and gold and oil to shoot up. Strangely, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 300 points, the dollar strengthened, and gold and oil were crushed. What happened?
Read more . . .
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/wag_the_dog.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 18 Comments »
FANNIE AND FREDDIE: GIVING AWAY THE FARM
Posted on August 15, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Last week, Congress passed a housing bill that gave the Treasury Department a blank check to inject billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, snatching them from insolvency. To accommodate this blank check, Congress obligingly raised its debt ceiling by $800 billion. Ouch! That’s nearly a trillion dollars. Why was it necessary to incur this potentially crippling public debt to bail out two completely private, for-profit behemoths, which have run themselves into bankruptcy with their own risky investment schemes? Policymakers said it was essential to maintain the country’s creditworthiness with foreign lenders, which today hold about one-fifth of Fannie and Freddie securities. According to a July 21 report by Heather Timmons in The New York Times. . .
Read more . . .
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/fannie_and_freddie.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 5 Comments »
PUTTING THE “FEDERAL” BACK IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Posted on July 29, 2008 by Ellen Brown
In a July 19 Wall Street Journal article titled “Why No Outrage?”, James Grant notes that financial behavior that would have been met with outrage in the 19th century is now met with near-silence from a too-tolerant populace. Why? He suggests that the lack of outrage may be because the old 19th century Populists actually won . . . .
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/federal-back-fr.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 4 Comments »
Let the Lawsuits Begin: Banks Brace for a Storm of Litigation
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Lawsuits threaten the banks from all sides – from state attorneys general, consumer class actions, and investor backlash. Shifting liability for the subprime debacle back to the banks could bankrupt even the biggest banks. But that might not be the end of the world . . .
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/bracing-storm.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 9 Comments »
THE SUBPRIME TRUMP CARD: STANDING UP TO THE BANKS
Posted on June 29, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Ellen Brown, Articles, June 26th, 2008
More than 1.5 million homeowners are expected to enter foreclosure this year, and about half of them are expected to have their homes repossessed. If the dire consequences Jefferson warned of 200 years ago have been slow in coming, it is because they have been concealed by what Jerome a Paris calls the Anglo Disease – “the highly unequal economy whereby the rich and the financial sector . . . capture most of the income but hide it by providing cheap debt to the middle classes so that they can continue to spend.” . . . .
Read more here: http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/subprime_defense.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 11 Comments »
Works of art are never finished . . .
Posted on March 2, 2008 by Ellen Brown
Anne Says:March 2, 2008 at 5:06 pm Ellen: I’m still reading the first edition of your book (and I am so grateful for the clarity of it all; what a welcome education). Are you able to quickly summarize what topics are in the new version that are not in the original? Any hint on the topic of your new book? Many thanks for all this work…what a service.
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 7 Comments »
Latest articles
Posted on November 11, 2007 by Ellen Brown
BEHIND THE DRUMS OF WAR WITH IRAN:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR COMPOUND INTEREST?
November 9, 2007
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/war-with-iran.php
Update – more economic sanctions on Iran –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2208176,00.html
LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS:
HOW TO CUT SUSTAINABLE ENERGY COSTS IN HALF
November 5, 2007
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/energy-costs.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 4 Comments »
WEB OF DEBT BLOG 
MONETIZE THIS! A Better Way to Fund the Stimulus Package
Funding the government’s budget shortfall has usually been left to private lenders; but those loans are drying up, and servicing them is proving expensive. Both this interest burden and the need to continually attract new lenders could be avoided by tapping into the government’s credit line at its own central bank . . . .
Read more —
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/monetizethis.php
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 116 Comments »